Survivalist --- Data Storage.

[murphylawe]

Please don't laugh. I know the folks in this group are gonna say "What's The Point?" or better yet, "Where's Your Tin-Foil Hat?"

That said, I have a puzzle for you... I have been writing and storing 'Survivalist' articles and manuals for some years. I have collected or created thousands of PDF documents covering everything from agriculture, construction, electronics, HAM radio operations, fuel re-processing, herbal medications, a PDR, you name it. It's nearly 2 GBs of files at this point and I have it stored many copies on multiple thumb-drives. I store them in Faraday bags stored in a Faraday cage, one of two insulated 30mm ammo cans. I even have a couple of cheap laptops and netbooks in the cage with them. I will be able to access the data no matter where I am.

Here is my quandary... how can I set up a way of quickly disseminating the information without the benefit of paper?

Many years ago I played with Linux, while working as a teacher. Put it this way, it was so long ago that Debian was new... anyway everything has changed so much. I am envisioning a way to load a simple Linux OS onto a thumb drive along with my PDF documents. I want to be able to hand someone a thumb drive and them have a chance to use the information.

There will be plenty of laptops and netbooks that won't be destroyed, or will be repairable. However, I am betting their OS's will be compromised. Have we advanced to the point where a simple Linux OS can be canned in a thumb drive and set up to automatically install the whole thing as a package onto a wide variety of computers? I remember loading Lucid Lynx on crappy laptops I would buy so my students would have computers.

Anyway, it is just an idea I have had... it would have to be 'Idiot-Proof'. Simple enough that anyone could plug the thumb drive into a USB slot on any laptop or netbook and have better than a 50-50 chance of being able to access the PDF documents. it doesn't have to print, email, access the internet, or anything else. Just open PDF documents, that's all...

Thanks ahead of time for the moment of time you considered it...

 

[captain-sensible]

well the term Survivalist could be broad for instance i've got a book by John Seymour - its about being self sufficent , that could be interpreted as Suvivalist. I dip in and out the book . One article was about Tilapi fish which in u.k was going to be tricky- but say In Ghana well all i would have to do is dig a ditch.

Some people are lazy and have un-diagnosed mental conditions (me) so i collection of pdf documents wouldn't get me off my seat. But a distilled chapter by chapter pdf , preferably edited by someone who can add knowledge and by that i mean experience ,would be of interest.

Now in terms of disiminating info without going to the internet i did touvh on that a couple of years back to do with edu 3rd world. Internet was flacky , expensive. What i did was to take 6,000 pages of teaching quality in the form and html pages and index them to a data base. That way they could be searched. So to put it simply instead of having static pages/pdf i put a bootable LinuxOS onto a usb stick. That Os had a web server set up linked to a database. I then put a html welcome page with a single text box on the page. When someone entered a search term, then it showed relevant page. So when the os was booted the index web page came up. the amount of storage for 6,000pages was quite small but i can't remember exactly under 16 gig though

Thats one possible way



ps this might be a candidate for "off topic" @KGIII

 

[Brickwizard]

I am envisioning a way to load a simple Linux OS onto a thumb drive along with my PDF documents.

choose your distribution, [at this point you will need to choose if 32 or 64 bit] and be suitable to run persistent from USB
get some cheap 16gb pen-drives
download your chosen distro and burn it either DVD or USB [depending on what your machine will boot from]
put clean pendrive in one of the usb slots, insert the medium of your chosen distro and boot.
when you come to the install choose the USB pendrive as the hard drive and install as normal
now you should have one fully independent OS, you can now drop and drag your pdf.s to the pendrive from your source storage
you now have a fully portable OS and your files..
here's the next choice if you want more than one copy , you can repeat the operation [that will keep you busy for a while or take the sensible option and clone your OS pendrive as often as you like [preferably to the same size pendrive]

Bwiz

 

[murphylawe]

choose your distribution, [at this point you will need to choose if 32 or 64 bit] and be suitable to run persistent from USB
get some cheap 16gb pen-drives
download your chosen distro and burn it either DVD or USB [depending on what your machine will boot from]
put clean pendrive in one of the usb slots, insert the medium of your chosen distro and boot.
when you come to the install choose the USB pendrive as the hard drive and install as normal
now you should have one fully independent OS, you can now drop and drag your pdf.s to the pendrive from your source storage
you now have a fully portable OS and your files..
here's the next choice if you want more than one copy , you can repeat the operation [that will keep you busy for a while or take the sensible option and clone your OS pendrive as often as you like [preferably to the same size pendrive]

Bwiz

I have a crapload of 4GB thumb drives. I want to make 20-30 copies, each on an individual drive. Just like now... knowledge will be power in that world. Any way you can think of to have both 32-bit and 64-bit OS on the same thumb drive to increase the odds of it working? I really need this to be as Idiot-Proof as I can make it.

 

[Brickwizard]

Any way you can think of to have both 32-bit and 64-bit OS

I don't sorry..

I have a crapload of 4GB thumb drives.

are they all full? if so you need to calculate how much storage you need for the data and add that to the 16 GB than get bigger pendrives a reasonable quality 64 GB are around $8-00 or a 128GB $12-00 from e-bay

Bwiz

 

[stan]

There will be plenty of laptops and netbooks that won't be destroyed, or will be repairable.

Whether electronic devices survive or not sort of depends on the catastrophe. I suppose you've read this book (or others) about EMP, electro-magnetic pulse. Anyway, enough on that.

As others suggest, a "persistent" USB is what you're looking for. It will boot and run on most computers without the need to install it. Use a 32-bit only Linux because 32-bit will run on a 64-bit computer, but not the other way around. You don't need both.

Many distros may exceed 2 GB on the USB, not leaving enough room for your PDF collection on your existing 4 GB flash drives. But there are smaller (much smaller) Linux distros that you can use. This is not an operating system that you'll ever need/want to upgrade... just lock in place and hope that it boots up after the apocalypse.

I would suggest Slax Linux. It has a 32-bit version and it's relatively tiny.... meaning it doesn't do much. That's okay... you're not asking for much. I don't remember if it has a PDF viewer, but if not you can install one. Make a master USB, with PDF viewer if needed, copy all your PDF's into it, and then use that to make 1:1 copies on your other flash drives.

Slax is based on Debian, but it's quite different from most other Linux distros. That doesn't matter either because you have no point of reference. It will do the job that you're asking.

 

[murphylawe]

Just downloaded 32-bit Puppy... the drives are all blank, and I only need to store ~1.8 gigs... and they were FREE. I like free, free is good.

 

[Brickwizard]

Just downloaded 32-bit Puppy..

puppy is pretty basic but will do what you want,

EDIT,, just make sure you install a PDF reader

 

[f33dm3bits]

If an EMP bomb goes off in your area no electronic device will survive

 

[murphylawe]

You are not completely correct... many electronic devices will survive a massive EMP event or even a series of smaller events. It depends on their age, distance to source, and especially where and how they are being stored.

Many electronics will have damage to different components and can be cannibalized, with enough effort. Post-EMP I wouldn't just give up on electronics... they will be rare, but they will exist.

This whole idea is based on a post-EMP world, hence the USB drives in individual Faraday bags, in a Faraday Cage. Eventually when the event, or events are over... we will attempt to rebuild something and that's why I want to make this as simple as possible.

Does the average person know how to target a drive?

Holding the 'T' key after Startup on Mac, or "Press Any To Boot From External Device" after startup on Windows seems simple... BUT, for some folks it will be beyond their ability.

Any way to set up this OS to be the default when plugged into a USB slot?

 

[KGIII]

ps this might be a candidate for "off topic" @KGIII

I don't see it staying with the main topic, so I'll go ahead and move it.

 

[stan]

Holding the 'T' key after Startup on Mac, or "Press Any To Boot From External Device" after startup on Windows seems simple... BUT, for some folks it will be beyond their ability.

That's your first mention of Mac computers... and I'd forget them. They are difficult to boot into Linux now, and they're probably going to be even harder soon. Apple does not like to share their playground with others. Linux runs primarily on PC's, and also on many ARM systems. But that's my opinion as of TODAY. When do you expect the apocalypse? 5 years? 10 years? 20 years? Technology changes very quickly. 10 years ago, you could find a lot of CD/DVD drives on a computer... but not so much today. Have you seen a floppy disk lately? USB is prevalent today, but who knows what comes next? ARM is gaining in popularity, but will it continue?

Any way to set up this OS to be the default when plugged into a USB slot?

No. What boots first is determined by the computer BIOS (or UEFI)... not by the bootable media. People need their computers to be set to boot USB first, or they need to know the proper interrupt key to get the BIOS Boot Menu when starting the computer. Different manufacturers have different interrupt keys (ESC, F1, F2, F10, and F12 are pretty popular). Some very old computers will not boot on USB at all. You probably cannot cover all the bases that you want.

If your group is willing to spend money (like buying Baofeng ham radios)... they might also be willing to buy cheap computers (like Raspberry Pi or other single-board computers) so that each person would have the same set of instructions on how to turn on the computer and access the PDF files. The Raspberry Pi will not boot from USB... you would need SD cards to boot and store your PDF's. Raspberry Pi's come in "kits" that include case, power supply, and SD card with Linux included.... but each person would still need an HDMI capable monitor or TV and a keyboard and mouse. Maybe that is overdoing it for your group, but it could provide continuity that you won't get with everyone using their own computers from different manufacturers and from different time periods of production.

[EDIT]
Thinking along the same lines as a Raspberry Pi... maybe a better alternative would be a cheap Android tablet, or Kindle or Nook book reader. Screen and virtual keyboard are built-in, but you'd need to invesigate the 2 GB of storage needed, whether USB or SD, that the device could use. I have an "OTG cable" (On The Go) that allows my Android phone to access a USB flash drive, so I'm pretty sure that an Android tablet could do that also. Tablets are probably easier if you have members in the group that are less technically inclined. And tablets would be cheaper than a single-board computer, especially after buying the needed peripherals. Just a thought.

 

[stan]

Here is my quandary... how can I set up a way of quickly disseminating the information without the benefit of paper?

Sorry, I think I'm looking at your problem as to prepare BEFORE the apocalypse. To spread your Linux USB drives and PDF's afterwards is a different game. How do you propose to deliver your flash drives? Over how far a distance? I don't think the USPS will be a lot of help.

It seems to me that the entire "survivalist" idea is to be prepared beforehand for any event. Waiting to provide your information may be too late... for some, anyway. A good friend of mine is quite into this and we've had some discussions about it, but not lately. His goal is not to reach out to others, and he primarily wants to protect himself and his family, if I'm not mistaken. We are good friends, but I'm not included in that bubble. (I don't mind... I really hope NOT to become a survivalist if/when that day comes.)

 

[murphylawe]

I will not want to interact with people initially, they will be very dangerous. However, this information will be useful later. As for dissemination... they will go as far as luck will allow.

 

[stan]

they will be very dangerous

Indeed they will. If you have food, and they don't... you may expend many bullets to defend your resources. But there may be many of them that survive too. And they also may have bullets.

As for dissemination... they will go as far as luck will allow.

Why wait on luck? If you have a community of like-minded friends and family... distribute your PDF collection now, and let them worry about how to open a PDF, or give them advice about it, or create the Linux USB we've talked about and send it to them. It's a large collection, but you could probably post it on some survival websites, or get your own website to distribute your info. Websites are cheap.